Just for Little Ol' Me

There are days around here when I have to remind myself that I asked - okay, BEGGED God to give me the opportunity to be a stay-at-home-mom.  I really harassed God about it, too. 

So when I go into a Christian bookstore and see a book that lists page after page of ideas for things for me to do that will give me some "ME time" I just get worked up.  Or listening to Christian radio the other day and being sweetly reminded by one of the speakers to "make time for just YOU."  Ugh.  I can't stand it! 

For one thing, I am a fallen, sinful woman.  It is easy for me to focus on myself.  It is easy to find hobbies with which to occupy myself.  Even if I didn't have enough imagination to come up with a hobby to fill my time with, I'm sure I could find something on t.v. to watch.  The last thing I need is for someone to give me ideas about how I can take the focus off what I'm supposed to be doing.  (Man, do I sound like a huge grouch, or what???)

Well, grouch or not, what I NEED as a Mom is encouragement to make my husband, kids and home the focus of my life!  I already struggle with wanting to get to my knitting or scrapbooking when I have a million other things to do without hearing the modern-day mantra, "Make time for just YOU."  God never tells us Moms to make time for our hobbies.  Not when we have responsibilities to take care of that He has given us!  The Proverbs 31 woman was not praised for her skill in cross stich or decoupage.  The Titus 2 woman is encouraged to be "busy at home...so that no one will malign the word of God (5).  I love what the notes in my Bible say about this passage....

"This is the purpose of godly conduct - to eliminate any reproach on Scripture.  For a person to be convinced God can save from sin, one needs to see someone who lives a holy life.  When Christians claim to believe God's Word but do not obey it, the Word is dishonored.  Many have mocked God and His truth because of the sinful behavior of those who claim to be Christians."

When we Christians sound just like the world in regard to the role of motherhood - that it's something that we need to get away from, even for a short while - we aren't convincing any non-Christian to revere God's word when it says,

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth.  Happy is the man who has a quiver full of them."  Psalm 127:3-5

And we certainly aren't making it any easier for the daughters and sons we are raising to revere parenthood when we complain in front of them to other adults that "the kids are driving me crazy" or "I just need some time away!"  Like Paul wrote in Philippians, we are given a task to do by God, and we can't spend our time wondering what else we can do besides that task. Paul wrote in 3:13-14, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." 

Paul is specifically talking about becoming holy with this passage, but I think it can be applied here since we can never become more holy by making outside interests more important than the job He has given us to do while we're here.  I have to constantly pray and ask God to give me His vision for my role here at home as a wife and mother.  I can't keep the focus without Him, and I certainly couldn't be happy in my role without His encouragement.